


Science of the Soul

by phoenixreal



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, F/M, Human Experimentation, M/M, Mind Control, Obsession, Past Torture, Torture, Triggers, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 13:33:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1120436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixreal/pseuds/phoenixreal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Urahara is a scientific genius, and his ex partner Aizen is just as much a genius. However, Aizen is twisted and likes to use human subjects. Urahara wants to correct the mistakes of his past, and finds the final test subject he's been looking for, but has he found more than he bargained for? Has he found the key to his heart as well as his salvation?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kidnappings - or Rescues?

****

"Oh dear!" the man in the striped hat said with a frown.

The hat shaded his eyes, but if it hadn't, a knit brow would have been definite underneath there. In front of him, his current experiment had exploded, glass and liquid flying around him. Again. He sighed. Such was his luck. He tapped his blonde stubbly chin and looked around. What would help make it more stable? He scratched his messy blonde head under the back of the bucket hat. Well, maybe some tea would help. He headed up the stairs into the tea room. He looked out the window. Sometimes he forgot how high up he was in this building. The view of the moderately sized city of Karakura Town was magnificent. The sun was just going down. He smiled. Ah well, at least the view was a lovely thing from here.

"Kisuke?" came a questioning voice from behind him. He turned to see a thin man with garishly pink hair and square wire framed glasses.

"Szayel! How are you? I know you missed yesterday due to your brother being ill, yes?" Kisuke said smiling at the young man.

The man smiled. "Yeah, Illfort's doing okay now. But I was wondering if the experiment was going well? The serum?  Have you had any luck yet?"

Kisuke frowned, and sighed. "I can't keep it stable. And if it isn't stable, it's no good, you  know that Szay…  I’m doing my best, but without the other half of the formula, I don’t know that I can do this."

"What are we going to do if we can't stabilize it? We're almost out of time, you know. And we're not even sure how many we're dealing with…" Szayel said, wringing his hands.

"We've got no choice. If we don't stabilize them…I don't even want to think about it," he said with a frown. "And that includes you and your brother too, you know, Szayel. I don't want to lose either of you."

The pink haired man bit his lip. "But how many were implanted with it? Me, Shawlong, Illfort, Nnoitra, Stark and Lilynette, but how many more?  You keep saying there are others, but you have no idea how many do you?"

"There are some like your brother that won't show any change, but you, Nnoitra and Stark I know will have more difficulties. You were all exposed to more of it that Illfort and Shawlong and those fellows. I'm most worried about the three that were given the highest dosages. I haven't had much luck with them," Kisuke said with a sigh, staring out the window with a frown. It was beginning to rain outside now that sun was down. He needed to find those three quickly. Before it was too late to save them.

Kisuke Urahara thought for a long moment. How did he end up here? How did he end up looking down on the town he'd loved so much instead of being in the middle of it running a simple candy store? Had it really been almost ten years ago that things got so messed up? If the experiments hadn't been taken too far, this would have never happened. Staying in the hypothetical stage and debating with others, that was fine. But when you actually got the idea to start playing God and implementing the ideas, then you had trouble. Like he was having now. He hated even more that the research had been his and then twisted to someone else's use.

In all his thirty-two years, he would have never guessed that he'd be standing here, the head of a multi-billion dollar scientific research facility, founded by him and his former partner. Ah, that former partner. The thought sent a chill down his spine. He wondered what he was doing now. Perhaps ripping apart some other child's gene sequences and splicing into them again? He frowned, an uncharacteristic look on the usually passive faced scientist. Well, more than that, he was a genius. He'd graduated with a doctoral degree at the age of 21 from MIT in Genetics. His partner had been a few years older, 26, and though still a genius, he had felt threatened by the younger man, feeling his inexperience was a hindrance. But in the end, they worked well together, so it was that they skyrocketed through the scientific community and founded the Seireitei. Considering the work they did with genetics, the name was appropriate.

Ah, his old partner. Sōsuke Aizen. Now his only competition. He'd opened his own research facility, Las Noches, a few years ago, but it didn't have the backing that came with the Seireitei. Aizen ended up focusing on genetic modification of animals and crops. But still, Kisuke had to wonder if he had stopped his human experimentation after all. He didn't think he would. He was too driven. Just thinking of the human experiments that had led to him breaking their partnership made Kisuke sick to his stomach.

Kisuke needed to solve this problem. And it wasn't like he hadn't been working on it. But with Illfort and the others suddenly starting to fall ill, he had to do something. But he was most worried about the three that had been experimented on as children. And they shouldn't be hard to find, because after the experiments, they had all acquired some unique physical characterizes. He had a feeling he was going to have to call him muscle on it. And he hated that.

He picked up the phone to call downstairs. "Can you send up Kenpachi and Yachiru?"

He waited. Soon enough the door burst open and a small pink haired ball of energy came bouncing in followed by an enormous man wearing an eye patch and spiky black hair. He wore a simple black shirt and jeans with simple boots. Yachiru was wearing a bright pink skirt and a white shirt with a pair of Mary Janes. He smiled at the two. Never in a million years would he have put these two together, but Kenpachi took care of the young woman like he was her father. No one really knew how they met, but Yachiru had been one of the original test subjects in some early experiments, hence the reason her hair had turned naturally pink.

Fortunately for her, that had been the only outcome of the genetic manipulation that physically manifested other than her seemingly eternal childlike appearance.  Mentally, she had become a powerhouse of memory and processing speed.  Kenpachi, also one of those involved in the early trials, had acquired unnatural height, strength, and thick skin that made cutting him difficult.  The early trials had been a mix of positive and negatives, unfortunately, the negatives outweighed the positives and he had abandoned them.

"Kenpachi, I need you to track down these three. These are pictures of them at the ages of 8, 9, and 11. They are now ten years older. It is imperative that you locate all three and bring them here as soon as you can," he said. "Be careful and don't count on the obvious, any one of them may have altered their appearance to cover up their unique characteristics.  Unlike the others I’ve had you bring in, these three may be unaware of what has happened to them.  They were far too young to remember most of it."

Kenpachi looked over the files, Yachiru looking over his broad shoulder at them. She clung to his back like some kind of spider. "What if they don't wanna come?" Yachiru asked.

"There's no choice, if we don't find them soon, they may all die, or worse, take a few people with them," Kisuke said with a sigh.

"Got it, Urahara-sama. How long do I have?" Kenpachi said, fixing him with his one eyed glare. Kenpachi had lost his other eye when he got in an altercation with a lion while in Nigeria.  The lion was unharmed, but would think again before attacking something that looked like Kenpachi.

Kisuke smirked. "I needed them last week, because I’m hoping it already isn’t too late."

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

He was wet and he hated to be wet. Really he did, but he'd forgotten his umbrella again. He ducked under an awning. He looked to see he was standing beside a shivering man who was also waiting out the rain. He looked down at the small man, and the man quickly left. The taller man snorted. So he was tall, and big, at 6'1", and he had blue hair. That generally put most people off. But he didn't care. If they didn't like him, that was tough. He beat the crap out of anyone that dared say anything to him.  Most people thought he was a punk and dyed it that color.  He didn’t argue with them.

He was leaning against the post at the university bus stop when a girl came walking up to him, and he did a double take. She had pink hair. She was short, really short, but she had a broad smile.

"Hey, I like your hair!" she said cheerily, not seeming to mind that she looked like a drowned rat.

He grudgingly returned the smile. "Yah, yers ain't too bad yerself, kid."

"Can you come with me, huh? I'd really like it if you could, I could use some help?" she questioned.

He quirked an eyebrow. "What in the world for, its pouring rain?"

"Flat tire and I gotta get home!" she said with a frown.

He shook his head and grumbled under his breath, but followed the short girl up to the road. When they got to her car, well, van really, he frowned as there was no flat tire. He turned to say something and found himself looking up at a giant of a man.

"Sorry," said the girlish voice and he looked over just in time to see her plunge a needle in his arm. For a minute he has time to wonder what the hell is happening and then the world fades away.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

He was wandering, as he often did at night. No reason really. He wears a black hoodie and covers his extremely pale skin. He would be classified as albino by most, but he had the most piercing green eyes. He wore a lot of black too. No real reason again. He walked through the rain, wishing he had remembered a raincoat or an umbrella. But oh well. He ducked into a convenience store.

He scanned the shelves impassively. Nothing really interested him. Interestingly, nothing ever really interested him. He grabbed a pack of crackers and a soda from the fridge and went up to pay for them. He looked around but did not see the cashier, and he wondered briefly where he could have gone.

"Hello? I would like to purchase a couple items!" he said loudly. There was no answer.

He turned around nearly running into a man over a foot taller than he was. The man looked down at him with a grin.

"Can I help you?" he asked softly, his face belying no emotion at the sight of a man so much larger than he.

The man nodded and pointed out to his van. "Need a flat changed."

He looked out. "Well, I'm sure you are suited to such tasks than I am. I am on the small side, and I am afraid I am not very strong compared to a man such as yourself."

The man looked irritated, and he looked over his shoulder. To the green eyed man's surprise a pink haired girl popped up. His face, however, was impassive as ever.

"Please, mister, I'm so cold and wet out there!"

He shook his head. "I can call someone to help you," he began, pulling out a phone. Then the large man grabbed his wrist. He looked up in time to see the pink haired girl lean over and stab him with a syringe. He looked up and felt slightly dizzy. And then it seemed that sleep claimed him.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

"Damn!" he muttered as he sloshed through puddles on his way to his dorm. Why'd it have to downpour right as he got out of his only night class? He made it into the dorm hall and headed up to his room that he shared with his friend Keigo. He brushed his bright orange bangs out of his face. He saw the Keigo wasn't in yet. Oh well, probably found some female companionship for the night. He started peeling off his wet clothes and grabbed a towel from his closet when he heard a knock on the door. He frowned, wondering if Keigo had left his dumb keys again.

He opened it and looked down to see a young girl with pink hair smiling at him. "What? Hey, who are you?"

He clutched the towel tightly around his waist. She smiled sweetly. "Can you help me?"

"Um, well, I would but I kinda need to get dressed, why don't you ask the resident down the hall?" he said, knitting his orange colored brows together. "Um, hang on, okay?" he said when she just stood staring for a few minutes without moving or blinking.

He rubbed his head as he shut the door.  He turned around and grabbed a pair of boxers and slipped them on, and was grabbing for his jeans when the door slammed open and instead of a pink haired girl there was a massively large man standing there glowering at him.  He had spiked black hair and an eye patch covering one eye.  He was scary looking to the much smaller college freshman.

"Um, what, who?" he stammered stepping back and dropping his jeans.  He reached behind him, trying to grab for his cell on the dresser but he ended up knocking it down behind it instead.

"I'm tired of waitin'. Yer commin' with us," he said matter of factly.

Extremely self-conscious he shook his head and tried to back up. "What?" he managed before the guy had grabbed him roughly by the hair making him hiss in pain.

"Um, Keni, I lost the other syringe…" the pink haired girl said with a pouty face from beside him.

The large man looked at Ichigo then to the girl. "Do I knock him out?"

"Keni, I don't think that would be good, just cover grab him and let's get out of here. Here, this will work!" she said, grabbing a tie off the table and tying his hands together with incredible speed. Then she grabbed another one from Keigo's dresser and gagged him with it. She stepped back and admired her work. "There we go!"

And then before he knew it, he was hefted up and over the huge man's shoulder, his muffled complaints going unnoticed by the enormous man. He tried kicking only to have his feet held down at the ankles by two very strong hands. He finally managed to reach out enough to bang against a door though, and he felt a flood of relief when it opened to see his friend Tatsuki's head pop out. He locked eyes with her and reached out with his bound hands. She gasped and wasn't sure what to do.

"Ichigo!" she called out reflexively, making the large man turn around and look at her. He smirked and waved as he continued, carrying the struggling man over his back.

Within minutes she was on the phone reporting the apparent kidnapping, and watched as from the window as he was tossed in the back of a white van with no plates on it.

The jarring bounce when he hit the floor on the back of the van he'd been dumped in made him cry out a little when his head hit the ground. Before he could think about what had just happened, they were moving.  He rolled over to find himself face to face with an unconscious figure with blue hair. He franticly looked the other way to see another male, this one with black hair but pallid white skin. He tried to scoot away from them but there was nowhere to go. He couldn't get his hands untied and his mouth was sore. Soon enough, they'd stopped, and he saw the door open and the huge man come back with a grin. He tried to scoot back, only to be yanked out by his ankle. He was tossed over one of his shoulders, and he picked the blue haired man up and tossed him over the other.

To his surprise, the pink haired girl, petite as she was, jumped in the back and grabbed the other pale fellow. She was incredibly strong. He was along for the ride so he tried to examine his surroundings. But he had no idea where he was. Soon, they were in some kind of underground garage and into an elevator. They walked down a long plain corridor, and then he heard a door open and he was flopped down on a bed. There were three beds in the room, and the other two were also placed on them. The big man smirked, and left with the pink haired girl. He jumped up and tried the door with his tied hands but it was most definitely locked.

He slunk back over and sat down on the bed. This sucked. And they didn't untie him either. It seemed like forever before the blue haired guy started to stir. Ichigo had been lying on the bed, unable to do much else while he waited. He looked over as the bluenette sat up groggily and looked around. He then blinked and stared at the mostly naked man in the room that was bound and gagged. Ichigo sat up and held his hands out toward him, hoping he got the hint.

The blue haired guy frowned then looked around. He reached over and tried to yank the knot out but found it too tight. He frowned and moved closer and it took a few minutes of cussing under his breath before he got it untied. As soon as he did, Ichigo sighed then reached up to get the gag out, but found he couldn't get the knot out of that either. He groaned in frustration because his mouth really hurt and the whole tie was soaked with spit, which was just gross.

"Tch, lemme see," the bluenette said and Ichigo turned and soon enough his gag was gone.

Ichigo sighed in relief and franticly rubbed the sore corners of his mouth. "Oh gods, thank you."

"What the hell is going on?" the heard from the third bed, as the pale fellow sat up. He had incredible vivid green eyes.

"No idea, big freaking guy came to my dorm and dragged me out," Ichigo said slowly, then glanced down. "I guess I should be happy I got on shorts before he grabbed me."

Ichigo noted that both of the others were in damp clothes, obviously, they too had been out in the rain.  Blue was wearing dark jeans and a t-shirt, and Green-eyes was wearing a pair of tan slacks and a black polo shirt.  Ichigo really felt exposed without his clothes and crossed his arms over his rather thin chest, covering the fact that he had a pair of nipple piercings and a tattoo over his heart that he really didn’t feel like explaining.  He caught the glance at the piercing on his belly button in that hung down, thankfully, the big brute hadn’t pulled it out when he threw him over his shoulder.  Blue looked to be inked, but he couldn’t tell yet what the patterns were.  He had a tattoo on his face that looked like it was tattooed over his jaw to match the bone underneath.  Ichigo’s other tattoo was currently unseen where he was sitting, and with the way the Bluenette looked, he worried about him catching sight of that one.  No doubt the gemstone strawberry dangle on his belly button was bad enough.

"I was helping some pink haired girl with a flat, and then she stabbed me with a needle," the blue haired one said finally after looking the other boy thoughtfully for a moment.

The pale one nodded. "Yes, he said something about a flat, then that pink haired one stabbed me. Why were you not stabbed with a needle too?"

Ichigo sighed. "She said she dropped it, so I got lucky and tied up instead. Name's Ichigo, by the way," he said softly.

"Grimmjow," the blue haired ones said and they both looked to the green eyed guy.

He nodded acknowledgement. "Ulquiorra."

They sat in silence for a bit. What more could they do?


	2. Cutting to the Chase

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reposting my dears. A bit of revisions. Urahara/Ichigo has been on my mind. Some mentor/student sex is always great.
> 
>  
> 
> I want to thank every one of you that read this.
> 
> However, I do have a favor to ask. I'm looking to get my original Yaoi Novel, On the Training of Doctors, published this year. I would appreciate it if you would help make it a success. My original fiction is more detailed and polished, of course, than my fanfics, and I have both an amazing co author and artist. Please visit goo.gl/VS2QQs or look up On the Training of Doctors on Kickstarter.

Urahara stared at the monitors. All three of them were here, finally. He was actually quite surprised that Aizen hadn't gotten to them first. He had expected it. And it had been far too easy for Kenpachi and Yachiru to manage it. Luckily, he'd only had one 911 call to intercept, and it had been from the last one when Yachiru had misplaced the last sedative syringe. That girl, he thought shaking his head. Oh well, at least everything had been in place. It reminded him how valuable his small group of people was to him. The thought of any of them dying was unacceptable, and he was going to do everything possible to stop that. If it wasn't for the Hogyuku formula, none of this had happened. And he'd been the one to invent the damn thing.

If he still had it, he could try and correct this mess. But Aizen had stolen the formula. And because Urahara had worked so hard to keep it out of other hands, he had split the formula into two pieces that had to be laid together over a light table to see the whole thing. He had a copy of one half but not the other. And he had been so careful to keep the thing that way, even down to his closest associates.

It wouldn't have been so bad if the serum the formula created was stable. There was an ingredient, though, that he had a hard time finding when he made the first batch to test. Aizen held the secret to that in the half of the formula he possessed. So, here he was, experimenting with a highly volatile serum to try and correct the changes in the very DNA of these people. He was realizing slowly that the changes were permanent, and no amount of trying to change that was helping. So instead, he was having to settle on the next best thing. Stabilization.

He was almost there. The Hogyuku serum naturally tried to stabilize itself. But when combined with the DNA of something non-human, it tended to want to recode the entire gene sequence if it wasn't stopped. His original subjects, Yachiru, Kenpachi, and that group, only suffered minor cosmetic changes, with a few deeper alterations to their physical bodies. Kenpachi was unnaturally strong and thick skinned and had grown in height and girth. Yachiru had stayed the size of a child and her hair had turned pink, but she gained incredible speed and dexterity as well as mental capacity. After that, he decided that human experimentation was treading on the ethics, and he set about working with animals. Perhaps that was when things went wrong, when Aizen got the idea of mixing animal DNA with the Hogyuku serum to see where the alterations went.

He did it so secretively; it wasn't until he walked in on a group of three young boys in the testing room. Aizen had come in with a chart and found Urahara looking at him. They'd argued about what he was doing, Aizen claiming that they were perfect test subjects, and they shouldn't pass up the opportunity. Urahara had prohibited testing on the children, to which Aizen had informed him it was too late for that, the testing was finished and they were being sent back to the orphanages they’d come from. He found out that there were many others he had tested on at various orphanages and homes in the area.  He’d chosen children and teens that had no family so that their losses wouldn’t be missed. It was that point he'd banned his partner, and closest friend, from him and his research facility. He went without a fight, and it was only weeks later Urahara realized he'd stolen half the Hogyuku formula.

That had been forever ago. So long. He looked up as Szayel came in, his pink hair pulled back, he looked flushed.

"Hey, you okay?" he asked. Szayel shook his head.

"Kisuke, I don't know, Illfort is getting worse. The DNA is starting to rewrite faster. He's going to transform…into something…and I don't know what to do. He's my older brother, and I really hate him for dragging me into this, but I don't want him to die like this," he said, pushing his silver square-framed glasses up his nose.

Urahara nodded. "Bull DNA was what he was injected with, wasn't it?"

Szayel nodded. "Yeah, he's one of the weakest ones, so I think that's why his sequence is being overtaken, early experiment and least stable." 

Szayel and his brother had been taken in from the foster home they’d been in under the ruse that Aizen was testing hyperactivity drugs.  He’d offered the teens money to come and do the experiments.  Illfordt had been first, and when his brother had money, Szayel decided to go to Las Noches.  It wasn’t until months after the drugs were administered that both of them ended up in jail for a violent outburst at a bar.  Their DNA was destabilizing, and the first sign was violence.

"Well, I have the three down there I've been searching for. Maybe they'll shed some light on what Aizen was doing.  The advantage to those three is that I know for a fact they were given the purest and most complete version of the formula," he said looking at the monitor. He'd have to take the orange headed one some clothes, it looked like Kenpachi had pulled him out of his dorm in his underwear.

"Well, no more putting it off. Szayel, give him the sedatives I gave you. I've already had to sedate three of the others, Mila Rose, Sun Sun, and Apachi. Hal is beside herself, but I had no choice, those three are everything to her. You go take care of your brother. I've got to get some blood from these three for testing," Kisuke said, putting items on a cart as he spoke.

Szayel was about to leave. "Will you need some help? They don't look like they'll be easy if they don't prove sympathetic to your words."

"I doubt they will, they were basically kidnapped and brought here. They won't comply easily. I'd sedate them if I could but I don't want any drugs in their system for the testing they need. I'll have Keni and Yachiru help. You worry with the others," he said, pressing a button to alert the aforementioned.

He headed down the hall and stopped outside the doorway to the white room inside. He'd been here too often. Before long, the hulking Kenpachi came up with Yachiru on his shoulder. Behind him, the taller, but thinner, Nnoitra followed.

Nnoitra was another one like Szayel.  The formula he’d been given seemed stable for the most part, but he was prone to incredible bouts of anger and violence, making him one of the more volatile of the group.  It was only through sparring matches with Kenpachi that they managed to keep his violent tendencies in check.

"Thought you might need some help, Kisuke," he said mildly, grinning as always. "Six arms are better than two if Kenpachi had trouble with these boys."

"You know I'd prefer you not use that ability, we're not entirely sure if utilizing the extra arms will accelerate the DNA re-sequencing, you know," Kisuke said with a sigh as Nnoitra concentrated and two additional sets of arms ripped through his clothes.  To be honest, he was worried about Nnoitra.  The DNA belonged to a praying mantis, and combining insect DNA was different than combining mammal DNA like Illfordt, or even squid like Szayel.

"But I love it! Just promise when you stabilize this shit I get to keep the extra arms!" he said, a gleam in his eyes.

Kisuke sighed. "And I need to find some clothes that will work better, or Uryu is going to skin you, he's tired of fixing your clothes."

Kisuke was treated with a wide smile, and opened the door to find all three boys leaning back against the wall on their respective beds. All three jumped to their feet in obvious defensive stances when he pushed the small cart in.

"Hello, I figure I should come and introduce myself and explain what is happening," he said, smiling and adjusting the green and white bucket hat he wore.

"Who the fuck are you?" asked the blue haired one. Grimmjow Jagerjaquez, injected with panther DNA.  Prone to violent outbursts all throughout high school.  Football and soccer player.  Known for his acerbic wit and violently protected of those he considered members of his “pack” at all times.

He smiled. "Are you going to cooperate as I run some tests or do I need to have you all restrained?"

The three boys glanced at each other. "Like hell you're getting near me again!" the orange haired one said frowning, keeping his back flat to the wall and his arms crossed over his chest.  Kisuke had no idea what he had been injected with because Aizen had taken those files.  Kisuke’s curiousity was peaked because Ichigo’s files were the only ones Aizen had left with.

Kisuke sighed, he figured as much. "Nnoi, Keni, take care of it."

When Kenpachi entered with his pink haired charge they all tightened as thought to try and run.  The then they saw a black haired guy that was actually taller than the freaky spike headed guy with six arms. Keni nodded toward Ichigo and the six armed fiend had him, one arm around his neck, one around his waist, two more holding his wrists down, and the last one just hovering to the side. Kenpachi moved easily and quickly and put the blue haired one in a head lock and Yachiru leaped over and tackled the green eyed one to sit on his back on top of the bed. All three were effectively immobilized.

"Ichigo, I believe, is your name?" the blonde with the hat said, coming over to him first. He struggled but there was no way with six hands on him he could even move an inch.

"Kisuke, this fucker's strong for a skinny bitch, man," Nnoitra said, grinning. "Can I fight with him later?"  He reached up with one of his hands and flicked the piercing on Ichigo’s left nipple above which was the tattoo of a chain with four hearts dangling from it in the shape of a heart.  “He likes pain, too, see,” he said flicking the dangling crystal again.  Ichigo flinched each time he did it. 

Kisuke shook his head, seeing the gleam in Nnoitra’s one eye. "Nnoitra, not yet, he's not even close to the point that he'll be able to fight with you or Keni yet." He saw the frown on the taller man's face. "Don't worry I'm sure you can spar with him plenty once he awakens."

Ichigo's mind was a blur. "Wh-what is happening? What's going on? Wh-what do you mean awaken?"  He’d completely forgotten his embarrassment at being nearly naked in front of these people.  There was something at the back of his mind about that phrase that made his heart race.

Kisuke placed a hand on his shoulder. "I assure you, Ichigo, no one here is going to hurt you. And if all three of you cast your mind back, I'm sure I will seem familiar in some way. We've met before, but you were children then.  You were only eight, my boy," he said with a smile as he took his arm.

Ichigo stilled suddenly, actually recognizing the face, that messy blond hair, the soft comforting voice. "You-you were there…when that man…he…he…"

His eyes were wide and he started shaking uncontrollably, memories that had been locked into his mind for such a long time. They were things he didn't want to remember. Things that made appearances in his nightmares, but disappeared when he woke up in the morning and he was so glad of it. But now, everything was crashing into him like a flood.

-O-

"It's okay, Ichi, it's okay. The pain will be over in a minute."

His body arched against the cold steel table under his naked body. The restraints strained and he screamed. His whole soul was being ripped apart and reshaped, and he could feel every moment of it. He wanted to pass out, but he couldn't, every nerve was on fire, every muscle was exploding.

"Shh, it will be over soon, sweet Ichi. The serum takes a couple hours to complete this particular transformation, but the results will be well worth it, despite the pain you're in right now. It will be over soon."

That voice, like warm milk sweetened with honey.  He remembered that voice so well.  Entrancing, enchanting, he remembered it weaving a spell over his mind.

Time crawled by, too slow, and he was still screaming, but now there was blood running from his lips because he'd screamed so much his throat was bleeding. He couldn't stop; there was no relief, just incredible crashing pain that was doubling as it went. His wrists and ankles were so cut that there was a constant drip of blood in the room from the table.

"I'm so sorry for the pain, but it has to be. What I'm doing to you, I haven't tried this with the others, so I'm hoping you live through it. The results either way will be worth it, whether you live or not. The other two children worked well, but I've changed it since I did their injections. Now it is all about you, the rest can crawl in a corner and die, but you…"

Eventually the pain left, but by then he was too exhausted to notice. The shackles were undone from his ankles and wrists, and they weren't bleeding anymore, like they'd healed. He heard the brown haired man cluck and scribble notes as he laid there completely unable to sense anything but the echoing pain and that sweet honeyed voice in his ears.

-O-

Ichigo came back to reality to see Urahara drawing blood from his arm, two of the six arms holding his arm still so he could do it. He started fighting again, the hands on his arm gripping tighter as a surge of adrenaline energized his flagging muscles.

"No, no, no, not again, not again…" he muttered.

Kisuke looked up with pain in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Ichigo, I'm trying to fix what he did to you, if it helps, I'm sorry."

His eyes were frightened and large as he tried to backpedal into the body that held him. "Lemme go, lemme get out, get out, I can't do this again…not like that…"

Kisuke sighed and filled a syringe with something from a vial. "I'm sorry, I have to do this, I can't let you get so worked up, things might happen too fast.  Too much adrenaline will activate the genes, and I don’t even know what he did to you until the tests come back, Ichigo."

Ichigo jerked his whole body, or tried to, as Kisuke injected him with something that made him first get dizzy then very relaxed as he slipped into the iron like grip that held him.

"Don't hurt me anymore," he whispered as his eyes slipped closed. Kisuke sighed, patting him on the arm.

"I won't, Ichigo, I won't." He looked up at Nnoi, eyes grateful. "Put him to his bed, and put these on him, please," he said, handing him a set of clothes. Nnoitra smiled, letting his four extra arms recede and then set about dressing the boy, pausing to snicker at the tattoo he found across his lower back.

Kisuke then turned to the other two. "Will you please let me draw blood, Grimmjow?"

Behind him, the grip tightened and one of his arms was forcibly extended. He growled. "I don't fuckin' recognize you, bastard, and I don't know these other two."

"It's okay," he said, setting to draw the blood quickly. Once he'd taken it he went over to the final one, pinned beneath Yachiru. He wasn't really fighting it too much, however.

"Ulquiorra, can I please take your blood samples?"  Emotionally distance throughout school and appeared to have no violent tendencies at all.  He seemed possessed of pure apathy.  He’d been treated with the DNA of a vampire bat.  Ironic considering his color had leeched from his skin.

He nodded and Yachiru climbed off of him, and he sat up offering his arm.

"You seem familiar, but I have not decided how," he said, watching impassively as he took the blood.

"I believe that your memories should resurface soon enough. Ichigo's experience was more traumatic than either of you, so it is no wonder he would have it flood back when he saw me," he said, glancing over at the now clothed orange headed boy. "I don't know why he needed to use him, perhaps because he was the youngest."

He gathered up the supplies and left quietly, followed by the other four. Ulquiorra and Grimmjow just watched frowning, and then glanced over at their roommate.

"Whatever the hell he remembered, I'm not sure I want to remember what happened to me," Ulquiorra said softly.

Grimmjow sighed. "Ain't no shit, man."

The sighed and then realized fresh clothes had been left for both of them. They decided to take the chance to shower in the attached bathroom and change before sleeping again.


	3. Familial Bonds

Kisuke wasn’t sure what to do as he watched the victims in the closed room.  He was most worried about the red head.  He knew from the files that Aizen had taken special pleasure in using him out of retaliation toward the boy’s father.  Kisuke looked at the computer open beside him and sighed.  There had been no sign of Isshin Kurosaki ever since Masaki Kurosaki had been murdered when Ichigo was five years old.  Isshin and the infant twin girls, Karin and Yuzu were simply gone when the police went to the house to find them.  That was how Ichigo had ended up in Aizen’s “drug trial”.

It had been a seemingly innocent thing, this drug trial.  Aizen had gone to the local orphanages and wanted to see about working with “troubled youth” with some new ADHD medications.  At least that’s what he said they were.  The truth was far from something so benign.  Aizen had been doing the experiments for a while without success, but in doing so had refined his formula to a high degree.

There were four groups of victims of the human experimentation.  The first group had been a set of volunteers to develop metabolic enhancement drugs and things to strengthen the various systems.  Kenpachi and Yachiru had been in the group.  The major side effect of the first round testing had been slowing down the aging process of all participants to roughly one eighth of normal.  Because of that, they’d dubbed that group shinigami, almost as a joke.

The second group had been members of the first group, but there were eight that Aizen had called back for secondary trials without Kisuke knowing.  When he’d found out, he dubbed them Visored because they all had some sort of alteration to their eyes, a second lid had formed, almost like a shield, that would descend and recolor their eyes almost a pure red color when they were stressed.  Luckily, only eight of that group existed.

The third group was the most deeply affected.  Aizen had taken his research much farther and started experimenting on children under his “ADHD” drug trials.  There had been eight seriously affected that were literally able to morph parts of their body in some fashion like Nnoitra.  There were numerous others, like Szayel’s brother, who had milder dosages. 

The final group had been the three in the room now.  Grimmjow and Ulquiorra had been treated with higher dosages and it was assumed that there would be some secondary change they could perform other than the morphing ability.  With Ichigo, though, they really had no idea since he had been his perfect specimen.  He had no idea why, and had no idea if he’d even made the connection to who Ichigo’s father was.  Kisuke didn’t even know if he was still alive, for that matter.  He sighed and turned on the monitor and watched to see how the three interacted.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Ichigo woke up with a gasp and promptly smacked his head into something very hard.  He groaned and rubbed his forehead.

“Fuck!” came the gruff voice.  “You got a fucking hard head, brat,” Grimmjow muttered.

Ichigo blinked and saw Grimmjow standing over him, rubbing his chin.  He panicked a bit having him so close, both eyes going wide and freezing.  Grimmjow’s brows knitted together and he tilted his head to the side.

“Fuck, what’s the matter with you?  You act like I’m gonna take off your head or something,” he said, stepping back as he watched the other boy sit up and pull in on himself.

“S-sorry,” he muttered, pulling his knees to his chest and resting his chin on them.

“Are you ill?” Ulquiorra said with a frown, moving toward him and reaching to touch his forehead.  Ichigo flinched backward into the wall and Ulquiorra frowned and glanced at Grimmjow.

Grimmjow stared for a minute.  “You’re pretty damn jumpy, what’s up?”

Ichigo swallowed hard and shook his head, tightening his arms around his legs.  “N-nothing, really, just nothing…” he said quietly, but both his companions could see that wasn’t the case.

Ulquiorra looked at Grimmjow again and then sat down on the end of the bed, noting that Ichigo pulled his feet even closer to his body when Ulquiorra came close to him.  Grimmjow noticed it too.  “Are you afraid of us?” Grimmjow asked finally, crossing his arms over his chest and looked at him pointedly. 

Ichigo’s eyes answered without words as his eyes shifted between the two of them.  “Why in the world are you afraid of us?” Grimmjow said with an eye roll.  “We haven’t done anything to you and there’s no…”

Ulquiorra interrupted him.  “Grimmjow, stop, please.”

Grimmjow frowned and glanced at him and started to argue then stopped, looking back at the expression on their roommate’s face.  Ulquiorra had realized why Ichigo looked so familiar.

“I remember you.  We were in the same orphanage when we were younger.  This started back then, you used to sit alone, and you didn’t play with the rest of us,” he said slowly and looked up at Grimmjow.  “I remember now.  The drug trials.  They said I had ADHD and the drugs were supposed to fix it, but it didn’t, they brought us here, in a room like this, and the man with the black glasses gave us drinks that made us vomit and shots that burned.  There were a lot of us, but Ichigo was always pulled out of the room with us and taken away.  I remember his hair.  He was the only one with orange hair…”

Ichigo’s eyes had gone distant as Ulquiorra spoke.  Grimmjow nodded.  “I remember now…I remember now.  I had blonde hair, and they all said it was odd that it turned blue,” he said quietly, rubbing his chin.  “Doesn’t explain why he’s scare of us,” Grimmjow said looking back at Ichigo who looked to be feeling very boxed in with the two of them beside him.

“Why are you afraid now, Ichigo?” Ulquiorra asked, reaching toward him and seeing he flinched even more violently away this time.

“Hmm, I’m not, just fine, don’t…” he muttered and then stopped, burying his head into his knees again.  He lifted his head then and a look of pure distress crossed his face.  “Oh, not now,” he muttered, holding up his hands as they started to tremble.

Grimmjow glanced at Ulquirro as Ichigo’s eyes rolled up to the whites and his body went limp for a second before he started to convulse violently.

“Oh fuck me sideways, he’s having a seizure?” Grimmjow exclaimed, reaching to keep him falling off the bed.

“He’s epileptic, he knew it was coming, but he didn’t know soon enough to tell us,” Ulquiorra said.

“What the fuck do I do?” Grimmjow asked, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do.

Ulquiorra looked at his watch and then moved to stand beside Grimmjow.  “Relax, put the pillow under his head, roll him onto his side in case he vomits, and we wait for it to be over,” he said, watching Grimmjow slide the pillow under his head as they kept him on his side gently and blocked him from being able to fall from the bed.  Ulquiorra watched his watch.  “One minute,” he said quietly.  “I wonder if he takes medications for this condition?” he said out loud.  “I would hope that our hosts are watching and will intercede if it goes too long.”

Grimmjow glanced at the passive man beside him.  “What happens if it goes too long?”

“After two minutes, the chances of the patient entering a coma become greater, most epileptics carry emergency medicatons that are a high powered sedative that can bring them out of it by sedating the brain impulses,” Ulquiorra said as Ichigo’s body began to calm.  “There, one minute twenty,” he said, placing a hand on his hip and the other on his thigh.  Grimmjow held him by the waist and shoulder.  He tilted his head.

“Kid’s got ink,” he said, smirking at where his shirt had ridden up on his back.  Ulquiorra glanced down, and saw what Grimmjow was talking about.  A very intricate lower back tattoo is what had caught Grimmjow’s attention.  It was a strawberry plant with a large one in the middle and branching out both sides of it.  “Whoever did it, did good work,” he commented. 

“Is not this type of tattoo normally on women?” Ulquiorra said thoughtfully, helping Grimmjow turn Ichigo to his back now that his body had relaxed.

Grimmjow smirked.  “Women and gay boys,” Grimmjow said, pushing back Ichigo’s hair from his sweaty face.  “You saw how shy he was when he was brought in.  He’s got a belly button ring, and I noticed his nipples were pierced.  That might be part of the reason he’s nervous around me.”

Ulquiorra nodded, understanding.  Honestly, he didn’t know much about sexuality.  He was completely uninterested in such things.  Grimmjow unbuttoned Ichigo’s shirt because he was sweating and pointed out the piercings to his companion.  “The belly button ring is really girly,” Grimmjow said, noting the jewel encrusted dangle.  “And he’s got his ears pierced too, but no earrings right now,” he said as he puffed the pillow under his head.  “This ink though,” Grimmjow said, seeing the chain that was situated above where his heart would be with the four charms on it.  “That means something. I noticed he was trying to cover it earlier.”

Ichigo groaned then, hand moving to his head.  Grimmjow stood by him and waited as his eyes fluttered.  He looked exhausted.  “Hey there, you okay?” he asked nervously.  He’d never seen someone have a seizure before. 

Ichigo couldn’t be bothered to do anything more in this state.  It took almost an hour before he could move or speak after one of the full seizures.  He opened his mouth and closed it before he sighed and swallowed thickly.

“I believe his speaking is impaired after one of these,” Ulquiorra said, moving around Grimmjow to push Ichigo’s eye open and check his pupil dilation.  “Sometimes this happens.”

“How the hell do you know so much?” Grimmjow asked, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest.

Ulquiorra looked at him.  “I’m pre-med and I have a partially eidedic memory.  I remember every fact I read on paper.  It only works for things I read, however, I cannot remember things I hear in the same way.  I also have an unusually acute sense of hearing, but my sight is rather poor.  I wear contacts,” he said gesturing to his eyes.  “I can also hear things at frequencies impossible for most people to hear.  My doctor compared my hearing range to that of a bat’s.  I thought, considering my skin tone, it was appropriate.”

Grimmjow nodded, remember his own strange issues.  One of the strangest was the fact that right now he had an incredibly strong urge to lick Ichigo’s face, and not in the sexual way at all, in that area he was completely straight.  He’d had that urge before, when he was in high school, there had been a cheerleader that he got on with well, and he’d found himself sitting beside her one day at lunch after she’d been crying and had the oddest urge to lick her face clean.  He had fought off the urge, but if anyone tried to mess with her, or any of his friends, actually, he tended to beat the shit out of them.  People didn’t mess with his family, and since he didn’t have a biological family, his friends were his family.

“So do you think his seizures are related to whatever was done to him here?” Grimmjow said with a frown, brushing his hand over Ichigo’s head again.

“It is possible.  I would assume that my strange hearing ability and physical issues are related to whatever happened during those drug trials we seem to have all took part in,” Ulquiorra said with a sigh, resuming his seat on the bed by Ichigo’s feet. 

Ichigo still glanced at them and gave Grimmjow a look that said he didn’t quite trust him.  Grimmjow sighed.  “You think I’m going to be an asshole, don’t you?  I’m a big guy, jock type, probably got your ass kicked a few times in school by people like me, didn’t you?” he said finally, stroking his hair again.  Ichigo’s eyes widened slightly.  “That’s what I thought.  Homophobic jackasses, huh?”

Ichigo’s eyes went even wider.  Grimmjow smiled.  “Saw your tat, babe,” he said with a smirk.  “Out and proud, are we?”

Ichigo tried to turn his face away but Grimmjow wasn’t having it and tilted him back toward him.  Ichigo reached up to push his hands away.  “Hey, stop that, don’t do that, don’t worry about me, okay?” he said, trying to ease his nerves about this at least.  He knew that it wasn’t the only problem, but perhaps it would help a little bit. 

Ichigo’s stomach was a mess and he swallowed again, brows knitting as he wondered if he was telling the truth.  “Whoever did your tattoo did really wonderful work.  I take it you get called Strawberry?”   Ichigo nodded slowly, starting to get some muscle control back.  “Not the most masculine guy, I’m taking it?” he said.  The pinking on Ichigo’s cheeks answered.  “Babe, don’t, you rest, that was a rough one.  Ulquiorra said you were probably epileptic.”  Ichigo nodded slightly.  “Okay, rest, alright?”  Ichigo didn’t have much choice, though as the exhaustion was pulling him into sleep.

Grimmjow watched him fade asleep.  “Is he okay?” he asked Ulquiorra.

“I’m a student, not a doctor, I’m not sure the extent of his condition,” he said, glancing at him.  Something was worrisome about it. Something was not quite right about it.

“He’s a kitten,” Grimmjow said suddenly a few minutes later.

Ulquiorra glanced at him.  “He’s a cub?”

Grimmjow blinked.  “Like a cub, I mean,” he said, blinking. “He’s weak, needs protection, you know.”

Ulquiorra glanced at him.  “Interesting.  You have cat like instincts, have you ever been told this?”

Grimmjow shrugged.  “I guess,” he said.

“Panther, actually, not just cat,” came a voice from the doorway. 

Ulquiorra and Grimmjow both looked over to see that Kisuke had come in silently.  “What?” Grimmjow asked.

“I know you’re curious, why you’re here, and now that you’ve had a chance to rest, I can explain things a bit.  You were all a part an illegal and unethical set of trials done by my previous partner, Sosuke Aizen.  He used a genetically altering formula we created to splice animal DNA into human DNA sequences.  As children, you were easy to manipulate.  And there are more of you.  The two of you were almost his last subjects, aside from Ichigo.  However, I don’t know what he spliced into Ichigo’s DNA yet.  The tests haven’t come back,” Kisuke said with a sigh.

“Is that the reason for the seizures?” Ulquiorra asked.

Kisuke nodded.  “I believe so.  The tests haven’t come back yet.  His medical history shows that he’s diagnosed with epilepsy since he was nine years old, however, no medications have any effect on the seizures.   Most of his foster parents have been at a loss for what caused it.”

Grimmjow moved closer again, brushing his head again with a high degree of affection.  “He was bullyed for that as well.”

“As well?” Kisuke said with an arched brow.

“Well, yeah, the gay thing, he seems to have suffered for that quite a bit,” he said quietly.

Kisuke blinked.  “Sexuality.  That’s an aspect I haven’t looked into, quickly, you, what’s your sexuality?”

Grimmjow frowned and looked up.  “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“Your DNA was infused with panther DNA, from the records, female DNA.  Are you also homosexual?” he asked, curious now.

“No!” he said.  “I’m straight as a damn arrow, man,” he said, stroking Ichigo’s head again.  Kisuke smiled. 

“So the DNA injected didn’t affect the sexuality, so that has no bearing on the effects.  However, you have the instincts of a female panther,” he said, tapping his chin thoughtfully.

“What?” Grimmjow said, frowning and standing up. 

“You’ve got a history of being overly protective and possessive of those you consider your closest friends, and you are generally a loner otherwise.  You have the maternal instincts to take care of one or two ‘cubs’ at a time, but other than that, you distance yourself from others, and are very aggressive,” Kisuke continued.  “I’ve found this with all the subjects.  They have taken on personality traits of the creatures that they were infused with.  Nnoitra, one of insect infused subjects, was infused with female praying mantis DNA.  He is incredibly aggressive, and particularly violent after he’s had a sexual encounter, so much so that any encounter he has to monitored and given a way to vent violence afterward.  Another, he and his sister were infused with Wolf DNA, has a pack mentality and tends to keep his pack small and only consisting of himself and his sister.  There are more, but the animal dictates possible traits they possess.”

“What about him?” Ulquiorra said, pointing to the sleeping Ichigo.

“We have no idea, my ex-partner took the files on Ichigo,” Kisuke said softly. 

“So why the kidnapping?” Ulquiorra asked, staring at him seriously.

“The serum that was used has started to become unstable in those that it was tested on earliest.  We’ve lost several people, and there are some that are very ill.  The reason we needed you three is because you had the highest and most pure form.  Some that we’ve lost have been very violent and there have been other deaths.  We feared that if the serum destabilized completely, you’d have a worse episode.  I needed you here both for your safety and everyone else’s,” Kisuke said with a sigh.

Grimmjow nodded, standing up, but seeming to hover close to his head.  “So I’m a momma cat,” Grimmjow said, looking at Kisuke.  “That’s fucking weird.”

“And apparently, you’ve picked your cub,” Ulquiorra added.

Grimmjow looked down and smirked at Ulquiorra.  “Yeah, guess so.”

Kisuke smiled.  “I’ll let you three rest for tonight, it is late, and tomorrow I’ll take you up to the floor where the others are housed and introduce you to everyone.  Sleep well, there will be much to do,” Kisuke said and left them alone. 

Grimmjow pulled his bed closer to Ichigo’s bed so he could remain in physical contact.  Ulquiorra didn’t comment.  Somehow, he too felt like he was a part of the small family unit they’d created.  Perhaps the animal traits created such bonds faster.  He smiled for the first time in many years as he fell asleep, after he’d pulled his bed closer to the others as well.


	4. Animals

 

Kisuke looked over the files for the others. He was trying to come up with something, anything that would help these people. He put a hand to his head and sighed. He started as the phone rang beside him.

“Urahara,” he said with a sigh.

“How are things over there?” came Jushiro Ukitake’s voice. Jushiro was one of those from Group A. He had a case of drug resistant tuberculosis. Kisuke had tried to cure him of it with the trials, and he had stopped the disease from killing him or being communicable. However, Jushiro was left with a permanent case of TB that never got better, nor got worse.

“I guess the old man told you I got Subject 0, 1, and 2.”

“He did. Would you like me and Shunsui to come over there and help with them?” he asked with long pause to cough.

Kisuke thought about it. “Yeah, that’s fine. I’m taking them up to meet the others, well the others that are currently conscious.”

“Alright, we’ll see you soon, then,” he said and the line went dead.

“Yo boss,” came Nnoitra’s voice from the doorway.

“What is it?” he asked with a sigh.

“Your pet boys are awake, seems like they’re getting antsy,” he said. “Want me to come with you in case that jumpy brat tries to bolt?”

Kisuke sighed. “Yeah, you probably should. I can’t even begin to understand what that boy went through and survived.”

Nnoitra waited and then fell into step beside him. “Saw he was a gay boy,” he said thoughtfully. “Wonder if he might like me any…like that would be perfect, find me a partner that I could fight after I fuck them…”

Kisuke glared at him. “Nnoitra, please, do not make advances on him. He is not in a great frame of mind right now.”

“Hey, I ain’t gonna do anything,” Nnoitra said with a grin. “But I’m damn sure tapping that if he seems interested.”

Kisuke shook his head. Sometimes Nnoitra’s incredible sex drive was hard to deal with. Luckily, considering the animal features that many of the subjects had, a lot of them had primal sex characteristics. That part had been a bit hard to get used to when he began gathering them. He couldn’t count the times he’d walked in on several of them paired up…or more than two of them together…Hal and her girls were probably the worst, though. No one went in their rooms without knocking or they were going to probably get a view of at least two of them performing some sex act with each other, or with someone else they invited in.

“I don’t even know if he or the other two have interest in sexual activity,” he said softly as they came down the last cooridor.

“Shit, the boy’s got a tat that basically advertises that he’s a bottom bitch. Come on. He’s like the rest of us. He just likes to have his ass…” Kisuke glared at him. “Sorry,” he muttered realizing that he was going a bit far.

Kisuke opened the door to the room and saw all three of them sitting on their beds. He noted that Grimmjow had moved his bed closer to Ichigo’s, and Ulquiorra had also moved a bit closer. He smiled. It always fascinated him about how they made connections with each other despite the situation they were in here.

“I’d like to take you up to meet some of the others. I didn’t bring you here to lock you up. I brought you here to try and help you, and the others,” he said and looked around.

Ichigo nodded and stood up, crossing his arms over his chest and ducking his head. Ulquiorra and Grimmjow followed him, and Kisuke noted that Grimmjow had taken up a protective position behind him and slightly to the side.

“Alright, come along,” he said with a smile as he led them down the corridor to the elevator. They got in and headed up to the top level. The door opened and they were assaulted with a cacophony of sounds.

“Oi!” Kisuke yelled. “Keep it down you lot!”

In the large front room, three of the girls were playing a board game with a couple of the guys. All of them looked up.

“Hey, newbies!” one of them said. She was a girl with large breasts and short green hair. She came over and grinned broadly at them and looked them over. “I’m Mashiro!”

Ichigo nodded. “Um, Ichigo,” he said and seemed to shrink away from her.

Grimmjow nodded. “I’m Grimmjow, this is Ulquiorra,” he said as he put his arm around Ichigo’s back. He felt him tense for a second but then it was like he was grateful that he was there.

The other two girls came up. “Hey there, I’m Loly,” said the girl with a pair of black pigtails. “This is my girlfriend Menoly,” she said and pointed to the girl next to her who had short blonde hair.

The two boys that had come up were standing back a bit. One was very short with white hair. He looked like a child, to be honest. He nodded to them. “Toshiro. And no I’m not twelve. I’m twenty four.”

The boy next to him smirked. “Yeah, he’s a kid at heart,” he said. This one was a tall and thin young man with blonde hair pulled back at the nape of his neck. “Shinji,” he said and blinked and for second Grimmjow thought his eyes changed color.

Nnoitra grinned and moved around and slapped Shinji on the ass. He glared at him. “The fuck, Nnoi?”

“Want to fuck?  I’m horny as hell, and you’re one of the only ones that can take me on in my post sex rage.”

Shinji rolled his eyes. “Not today, Nnoi. After the last time we did that my ass hurt for a fucking week, you violent bastard, and you nearly broke my fucking jaw.”

“You know you like it,” Nnoi said with a grin.

Shinji growled and walked off from him. Nnoitra sighed. “Damn, I’ll have to see if Kensei will let me top him…or Hal might want to do something since her girls are all laid up…”

Kisuke shook his head. “Nnoitra, I know you’ve got these urges, but our new friends are going to think all everyone does here is have sex.”

“That’s not what we do?” came a new voice. “Could have fooled me,” he said. This guy was a taller guy with pink hair. “Hey, Szayel. My brother’s laid up at the moment, but I’m conscious…for now,” he muttered as he shook hands with Grimmjow and then Ulquiorra. He noted the stance that the other one had taken and didn’t approach him.

Grimmjow nodded. “I guess my hair ain’t so weird after all,” he muttered.

“Rukia!” came a guy’s voice and they saw a very short woman come walking out of a room followed by a puff of cold air. “Please…don’t do this to me, baby…”

She turned and glared as a guy with bright red hair and black lines on his upper body and head came after her. He was wearing a pair of jeans and nothing else. She was in a yukata or something. “I’m sorry, okay, I didn’t mean it…”

“You did too!” she said and glared harder at him.

Kisuke moved forward and put a hand on Rukia’s shoulder. “Yare, yare, you two. What now? Rukia, please calm yourself, you’re exuding far too much energy into your cold aura. I could feel it from over there.”

“He is…argh!” she said and looked away.

“Renji?” Kisuke said and looked at him.

“I just said that she was cold today…” he muttered. “I meant it literally! You turned down the temperature to like fifty degrees! I was freezing my nuts off!”

Rukia narrowed her eyes at him. “Well, if you don’t like my ‘cold’ then stay out of my room.” She snorted and went back into the room and slammed the door behind her.

Renji sighed. “Dammit, that woman is seriously going to give my dick frostbite one of these days.”

Kisuke sighed. “Renji, we have some new guests. And since everyone is in their usual moods…”

“You know she gets like this now and then. Fuck I’m gonna go stay with Byakuya for a while, at least he won’t freeze my fucking nuts off when I’m trying to get off…” Renji muttered and crossed his arms.

Kisuke turned to the others. “Ah, there are some interesting…relationships around here, as I suppose you’ve noted. There are four groups of those of you that were experimented on. Renji, Rukia, and Rukia’s adopted brother Byakuya, as well as Yachiru and Kenpachi who you met yesterday, were my test subjects. I put a stop to their testing when things started turning out badly, like with Rukia. She’s unable to tolerate temperatures over eighty degrees. She’s most comfortable at around twenty to thirty degrees, but when others are around, she can stand to be in about sixty or seventy for extended periods. So for this reason you’ll rarely see her leave her room.”

Grimmjow nodded. “What about you, red?” he asked.

Renji shrugged. “Um, well there were some…ah…strange things that happened,” he said as he ran his hand over his red hair. “Besides the hair and the markings, I kind of got dosed with snake and monkey DNA, and then fucking Aizen, when our trial ended, he managed to slip me another dose…”

“So what was the effect?” Ulquiorra inquired.

Renji shrugged. “You know those monkeys called Bonobos? That like to fuck all the time? Ah, yeah,” he said with a sigh. “And I’m super flexible and pretty fast too.”

“It seems that the most primal instincts in the animals that were used come to the surface in the easiest ways,” Ulquiorra observed.

Kisuke nodded. “Yes, and it is getting worse,” he said with a sigh as they continued onward. They stopped outside a wide glass window. Inside was a hospital room with five beds occupied and five more empty. “These are Sung-sun, Mila Rose, Illfordt, Apacci, and Lilynette.  Their DNA sequences have been altering at an accelerated pace. Some of the subjects I’ve had a reasonable time stabilizing,” he said as a boy came walking into the room.

“Kise!” he said and ran to hug him. He had blond hair and distinctly mouse-like front teeth. His eyes were a strange color of purple.

“Wonderweiss, how are you?” he asked with a soft grin.

“Good, I eat breaky today for Hal!” he said with a big grin.

“I’m glad! Why don’t you go on and play, okay?” Kisuke said and watched him skip away. He glanced back. “I managed to stabilize him and restart his development. He was stunted for some reason, and his body grew, but his mental development was stopped at infancy. I ran across him in a facility and realized what was happening to him. It’s taken almost four months, but his mind has started catching up with his body. Aizen used rodent DNA on him in the womb, which caused his body to age at an accelerated rate.”

Grimmjow frowned. “This is some fucked up shit,” he said with a frown.

“Yeah, it has been difficult to locate some of them. Some I have been unable to get to before their DNA rewrote to the point of no return, turning them into the animal their DNA was altered with in everything except body. That’s why I wanted to find you three. You might hold the key to the hogyoku formula. If I can unravel it, I might be able to reverse, or at least stop, some of these changes.” Kisuke looked around at them. “So, um, I’ll show you to some rooms. I know that it might be easier if you room together for now until you become used to things…”

Grimmjow nodded. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

Ichigo looked at him and was a little surprised as he held his arm still around his back. He was still feeling out of sorts after the seizure the day before. He hated how they left him dull and slow for a day or two afterward. “Yeah,” he said with a nod.”

Kisuke showed them to a room and then looked at Ichigo. “Ah, would you mind coming to let me check you out after the seizure yesterday? I’d like to run an MRI on you, just to see how things are.”

Ichigo nodded. “Um, yeah, I’ve had a ton of them, though,” he muttered as he rubbed his hands up and down his arms.

“You okay with him?” Grimmjow asked and Ichigo nodded. “Okay, I’m going to get to know the others around here so I know what’s happening.”

Ulquiorra nodded. “That is perhaps the best thing to do right now.”

Kisuke nodded and patted Ichigo’s shoulder. “Come now, nothing invasive. I even have one of those open machines.”

Ichigo nodded, more than a little thankful for that. He followed him down to the next level and into a room that looked like any other MRI room, but it had the open type machine. Kisuke helped him get up on the table and he adjusted his shirt. “Oh, wait, you have some piercings, are they metal?”

Ichigo’s eyes went a bit wider. “Oh, yeah,” he said and swallowed. “I always forget about that.”

He pulled up the t-shirt and fumbled with the ring in his belly button. He growled because his fingers were not cooperating. Kisuke smiled. “Here, let me, you seem to have trouble with your nervous system after the seizure.”

Kisuke deftly undid the belly button ring and then the two in his nipples. Ichigo stuck his tongue out to show him the one there. Kisuke was wearing gloves already, so he didn’t mind getting it out of his mouth. Running through an MRI with something like that in would cause a very painful incident. He’d seen it happen more than once. He put them in his pocket and looked up to see that Ichigo’s face had gone red as the strawberry his name was a homonym for. “What’s wrong?”

He bit his lip. “I…I have two others,” he said softly.

Kisuke frowned. “Where…” his eyes widened a bit. “Oh…okay. Are you okay with me removing them, or would you rather me just wait until you can do it yourself?”

Ichigo had no idea what the answer to that was. He sighed. “I…I’m here now, and after the seizure is a good time to run the test, because the readings are different right afterward…”

“I am a doctor, you know,” Kisuke said with a smile. “I have seen more than a few genital piercings. I am certain that Nnoitra has more genital piercings than two. Several of the others have some as well,” he said gently.

Ichigo nodded and found his hands were shaking too much to actually take the pants he was wearing down. “Dammit,” he muttered as he held his right hand inside his left. “I hate this. It lasts for almost two days before it goes away.”

“How often do you have one of those?” Kisuke asked as he slid the loose sweats down off his hips and then glanced at him before he pulled the undershorts down over him. He felt him tense.

“I see,” he muttered as he removed the Prince Albert type piercing. He frowned. “Ah, you said two?”

Ichigo sighed. “Down…”

Kisuke frowned and looked and realized he had a perineum piercing too. “Oh, I see,” he said and removed that one. “There we go. You are metal free.” He pulled his clothes back up on him and saw he was still blushing.

“Alright, let’s get this done, then we can get you back to your room,” he said and started the test. It went as quickly as any MRI and he watched as the results came up on the screen. He frowned. There was damage to some of the nerve centers, but as he was watching, from one image to the next, the damage was healing itself.

“Ichigo?” he called. “You said that that these symptoms last for a couple days, right?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Um, like right afterward I can’t really move or talk or anything, then I sleep for a while, and when I wake up it’s better, but not great. Just kind of fades after a while.”

Kisuke was amazed as he watched what was happening. “Ichigo, I need to get a look at your right after a seizure, or during it. Would you happen to be willing to wear a monitoring device for me?”

“Uh, I guess, what kind of device?” he asked curiously.

“It’s a set of electrodes, I’ll have to glue them onto your scalp, but I don’t have to cut any hair or anything, it will stick to you for a week at a time before I have to replace the adhesive. How often do these seizures happen?” he asked as he came out and got him out of the machine.

“It depends. If I’m stressed, it happens more often, but at the very least, once a month. But this is the third one this month,” he said with a sigh.

Kisuke nodded. “Here, I’ll put these back, I’m sure you don’t want them to seal over.”

Again he blushed. Kisuke stopped. “I have to ask something, Ichigo. It is personal, but my curiosity has a basis in this research.”

Ichigo watched as Kisuke carefully replaced the belly button ring, then the two nipple rings. He changed his gloves out and replaced his tongue ring and them looked at him. “Do you want me to put these back?” he said, holding the other two.

Ichigo didn’t want him to, not really, but he also knew he really didn’t want to have to get them done again. So he sighed. “Yeah, go ahead,” he muttered and closed his eyes as Kisuke returned them carefully. “What…what’s your question?”

Kisuke moved back up by his head. “You seem to be very hesitant and nervous around Grimmjow and Ulquiorra. And for someone that has the type of piercings you have, you tend to be rather shy and embarrassed by them. It has been my experience that people that have them are less modest. So why do you have them? And the tattoo? I noted that you were very nervous about the others realizing that you were gay, especially Grimmjow, yet you have a tattoo that strongly indicates it.”

Ichigo’s mouth worked before his brain stopped him. “It wasn’t like they were my idea,” he muttered then realized what he said and clamped his hand over his mouth.

Kisuke frowned. “What does that mean?”

Ichigo shook his head and sat up. “D-don’t worry about it.”

“Ichigo, please, there’s a reason you don’t want to discuss this. It may have some bearing on this research…” he began.

“It has nothing to do with this…experiment stuff. Just…just leave it, okay?” he said and slid off the table. “I…I want to go rest. I’m still shaky.”

Kisuke nodded and led him back to the room he’d given them. “Come talk to me if you need to, okay?” he said.

Ichigo didn’t answer just disappeared inside. Kisuke stood for a long time until he felt Grimmjow’s presence. “What’s the problem?”

“Something with Ichigo. There’s something he’s not telling us. He...he said something about his piercings and the tattoo on his back not being his idea.”

Grimmjow frowned and looked at him. “Not his idea?”

“That’s what he said and when I asked what that meant he told me to leave it alone. Considering the types of piercings he has…” Kisuke muttered.

“He has more than the nipples and his belly button?” Grimmjow asked.

Kisuke gave him a look. “Uh, yes, I had to remove them before we did the MRI. His hands are still not working well after the seizure.”

Grimmjow looked at him and nodded. “I’ll figure it out.”

“Um, don’t…” he started but the blue haired boy was gone into the room. “Push him…”

Grimmjow came in to find the orange heard boy sitting on one of the two beds with his chin resting on his knees. He looked up when Grimmjow came into the room.

“Kisuke said he did the MRI,” he said conversationally as he sat down on the bed beside him.

“Yeah,” he said. “Still not back to normal,” he muttered as he held up his hand. His fingers still trembled and seemed to spasm now and then.

“I want to know what the hell you meant when you told Kisuke that getting that tat on your back and the pircings you have wasn’t your idea,” he said with an even look.

Icihgo’s eyes went wide at him. “I didn’t…I mean…it doesn’t mean anything it just…”

Grimmjow shook his head. “No, I want to know what’s going on, cub,” he said and reached an arm around his shoulders. “I want you to tell me so I can help you with it. Something has been bothering you since we woke up here.”

Ichigo looked at him for a long moment. “I can’t…if I tell you…he’ll be mad…” he said quietly.

“Who?”

Ichigo looked away. “I met him in high school, before I was, you know, out. And I just…he noticed and we got to going out and it was nice for a while.”

“For a while?” Grimmjow asked.

“I mean, he doesn’t do anything bad,” he said and began looking at his fingernails. “I…I just have to listen or he gets mad. He…he doesn’t like me going out alone, and he wants to know where I am…that’s all.”

“That’s not all,” Grimmjow said. “Did he make you get that stuff done?”

Ichigo looked at him and nodded. “I mean, I could have said no, but…but he said we were doing it so I went with him…he’s all I have, you know, and I have friends, like my friend Tatsuke and her girlfriend Orihime, and my roommate at the dorms…but…no one that loves me.”

“No one, huh?” Grimmjow said.

“Besides him, of course,” he said and looked up at him.

“Where did he want you to get pierced anyway? Kisuke just said you had more than the ones I saw when you didn’t have a shirt on.”

Ichigo stuck his tongue out and showed him the ball in the middle of it. Grimmjow arched a brow. “And?”

“Th-that’s all…” he stuttered.

“That’s not all.”

Ichigo sighed and hugged his knees again. “D-down there. He…he said he liked the way they looked and…and I didn’t want to get them there. But…he told me if I took them out he’d be angry with me and I’d have to get them done again.”

“You’d have to get them done again, huh?” he asked.

Ichigo looked at him. “What else was I supposed to do? I don’t want him angry with me.”

“Why not?”

Ichigo’s head snapped up and he stared at Grimmjow a long time. “Huh?”

“Why don’t you want him angry? What’s so bad about him being angry? Everyone gets angry now and then.”

Ichigo just stared at him for a long moment and Grimmjow could read the tension in his face. “He…he yells a lot,” he said finally. “And, he’s never hit me, so he doesn’t do that,” he said but Grimmjow saw the bow to his head when he said so.

“He makes you sleep with him whenever he wants it, huh? Doesn’t give you a choice. Probably doesn’t care about you when he does it, just whatever he wants,” Grimmjow said with a sigh. It wasn’t that he hadn’t seen it before. The cheerleader in high school had a boyfriend like that. “You know, if you say no, it doesn’t mean he can fuck you just because he wants to.”

Ichigo looked at him. “But…but he’s my boyfriend, and that’s what…what you do…I mean, I want to be a good boyfriend, and he…he has his needs and I should take care of them. I shouldn’t tell him no because I know he’s going to want to do it.”

Grimmjow blinked at him. No wonder this kid was freaked out by him. “Ichigo, it doesn’t matter if he’s your boyfriend, or if he’s been your husband for twenty years. No is no. And if he doesn’t listen to you, that’s rape. No matter if you’re together or not,” he said softly.

Grimmjow felt the shiver through his shoulders. He looked up and Grimmjow realized his eyes were tearing up. “But…if I don’t do it with him he’ll go find someone else…”

“Then he should. You aren’t there just for his sexual gratification. If he says you are, he’s a shitty abusive fuck. And if I ever see him, I’ll punch his goddamned face in.”

Ichigo didn’t know what to say. “But…but…” he stammered.

“But nothing. Even if we walk out of here today, you’re taking me with you to this asshole, and I’m going to give him a piece of my fucking mind, and if he tries to act like he has any right to say anything, I’ll kick his fucking ass,” he said with a tight squeeze of Ichigo’s shoulders.

Ichigo swallowed and looked up into his blue eyes. The look there was something he’d never seen, to be honest. It wasn’t lust, not like with his boyfriend. No, this was entirely different. It was protective, nurturing even, and it made him feel safe. He bit his lip and leaned into Grimmjow’s hold. Grimmjow held him and they sat there for a long time.

Grimmjow had to take care of his cub. He would beat the living shit out of anyone that mistreted him from now on no matter who they were. They weren’t going to fuck with him anymore. And he was dead serious when he said he’d take the asshole down a peg or two.

“What’s this jackass’s name anyway?” he asked softly after a while.

“Abirama Redder. He goes to the college with me, he’s a football player,” he said with a sigh. For some reason, he felt like he could tell Grimmjow this. “He went to my high school with me. I just…I was at a bad point and he helped me.” He sighed. “He wants me to move into his apartment this year, but…but I’ve put him off, saying I had to help my friend with his bills at the dorm.”

Grimmjow nodded his head. “Well, Abirama is going to find out how to treat someone right. Even if it takes me ripping his fucking nutsack off and shoving it down his throat.”

Ichigo couldn’t help the smile as he snuggled into the comfortable hold Grimmjow had him in. He’d never had anyone say something like that to him. Abirama would just go with people who started picking at him, calling him a fag or telling him awful things. He’d laugh with them, join in even, as if he wasn’t his boyfriend and just as gay as he was. At least, he thought that. What if it wasn’t about what he’d thought? What if Abirama just liked to control him like he had for the last five years?


	5. Human Souls

 

Kisuke sighed as he sat at the computer and stared at the results. Several of them were dying, and he had no idea what to do. Apacci had taken desperate turn for the worse last night. Now, he wasn’t sure how to handle it. She wasn’t the only one, though. Szayel hadn’t left Illfordt’s side since around two am. His own traits were beginning to degrade, and Kisuke had noticed that he kept hiding something. The DNA he was infused with was a squid. More than once Szayel had been able to manifest tentacles, or expressed ink from less than desirable locations. He heard the phone buzz and picked it up. He smiled. Sajin.

“Sajin, how are you?” he asked.

“I just wanted to say I’m coming up,” he said, his voice obviously from a speaker. That was the only way that he could use a phone with the alterations to his body.

“You don’t have to call ahead, Sajin. Your condition isn’t going to scare anyone, I promise,” Kisuke sighed. The man was scared to death of frightening someone. For a while he insisted on wearing a bucket with holes in it over his head. Finally, Kisuke had convinced him to stop.

He was quiet for a second. “I know.”

The phone cut off and Kisuke sighed. Sometimes he wished he could just reverse what was done to these people. But he couldn’t. There was a light knock at the door and he looked to see it was Ichigo. Kisuke smiled, unable to help it. He was so different from the rest, and he sensed internal strength that he didn’t think the young man knew he even had.

“Ichigo, would you want to come greet one of our friends with me? He has a horrible fear that people will be scared of him, and it would be best to meet him face to face quickly, for his sake,” Kisuke said as he stood and walked around the desk.

Nodding, Ichigo smiled a bit. “Sure, what happened to him?”

Kisuke walked toward the door but saw that Ichigo was still not entirely steady on his feet. He was worried about the readings on the MRI. Quite worried. Whatever was happening to Ichigo’s brain was becoming worse. He reached for his hand, and to Kisuke’s surprise Ichigo took it. Then he felt him leaning on him significantly. That wasn’t a good sign. “Um, so did you end up talking with Grimmjow?” he asked as they walked to the elevator. Sajin wouldn’t come up unless Kisuke went down to get him. He understood it but still.

Ichigo nodded. “Yeah, I told him stuff. I wish I hadn’t because he got mad at my… Well, I guess he’s my ex, now, huh?”

Kisuke smiled. “Yeah, I think so. It doesn’t sound like he was good for you, Ichigo.”

“Now that I think about it, isn’t it odd to have someone stay with you for middle and high school? I mean, none of my other friends stuck with their boy or girlfriends that long. Especially since he always said he hated being with me.” Ichigo’s hand trembled a little.

“He hated being with you?” Kisuke asked. “Why would he say such a thing if you were together?”

Ichigo shook his head as the elevator doors shut and they rode it down to the next level down. “I don’t know, I mean, he would call me names all the time, bad ones, and when we… Ah, it wasn’t nice when we were together, but my friend Keigo said that wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He said he’d slept with a guy before and it should be good for both, but…”

The doors opened and Ichigo stared because the creature in front of him was huge and looked like a dog with a somewhat humanoid body. “Ichigo, this is Sajin. He’s one of our people with severe changes to his body. His DNA was spliced with a wolf. He was one of two infused with wolf DNA, but unfortunately, he was…” Kisuke stopped because Ichigo stepped over the threshold and grabbed one of Sajin’s fur covered hands and pulled with a huge grin on his face.

“Well, come on, aren’t you coming upstairs with us?” Ichigo asked, now completely ignoring Kisuke.

Sajin stared in what looked like pure disbelief and stepped into the elevator, ducking his head as he did so. “Ah, hello,” he said gruffly.

“You have such pretty fur,” Ichigo told him as he took his hand and rubbed Sajin’s hand against his face with a grin. “Feels so soft.”

Sajin swallowed audibly and looked at Kisuke. “Sajin, this is Ichigo. He’s subject 0.”

“Oh, you found them?” Sajin asked, still watching as Ichigo snuggled against his furry hand.

“Do you have fur all over or just here and your face?” Ichigo queried as they arrived at the floor. He pulled Sajin’s arm to get him out of the elevator now. “I want to see, take off your shirt. Is your chest furry too? I bet it’s warm,” he continued, leading Sajin to the common area and pushing him to sit on the floor in the pile of pillows that the lazy one named Starrk was sprawled in. Starrk also had spots of fur under his chin and on his chest.

Sajin glanced at Kisuke who just smiled at him. How could this soul be so pure? He had no fear of Sajin even though some of the others had taken a long time to get used to him. Now Ichigo had divested the large man of his shirt and was carefully looking over the fur on his chest and shoulders. Finally, he seemed satisfied and crawled into Sajin’s lap, putting his arms around his chest and burying his face in his shoulder.

“Hmm, you smell nice, like water lilies. You mind if I nap on you? You’re warm and comfortable,” he muttered and before Sajin could say anything, Ichigo had fallen asleep on him.

“What is he, a cat?” Sajin mumbled, looking up at Kisuke.

“No idea actually, but I’m leaning toward something not mammalian. He’s got regenerative capabilities,” Kisuke explained.

“Kis-Kisuke!!” he heard and turned to see Renji running from the elevator full tilt.

“Hush, Renji, Ichigo is asleep…” he began.

“Grimmjow, he’s gone.”

Kisuke gasped. “What? What happened?”

“We were down in the computer hall, and he was looking up something. He jotted it down on a piece of paper and got up. I asked where he was going and he just said he’d be back when he was finished giving a lesson in manners, whatever that means,” Renji explained.

“Abirama,” Kisuke gasped and took off to his office. The name had sounded familiar when heard it. It had been years. Renji was on his heels and watched as Kisuke pulled out a stack of files and flipped through them. “Redder…” he muttered. “Fucking hell.”

Renji cocked an eyebrow. Kisuke never cussed so it was no wonder he was surprised. “What is it?”

“He’s one of you, Abirama Redder. Group C. Eagle DNA was used on him. If Grimmjow went after him, he’s going to be walking right into Aizen’s area…”

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Grimmjow woke up with a headache and a sore jaw. He blinked, feeling the strain of his arms pulled up over his head and he looked up at a man with wavy brown hair. He wore a suit and tie, and at first glance looked like your average businessman. Beside him was that fucker Abirama. His long, smooth black hair laid at odd angles yet. His eye was black, and a large bruise spread from his collar up his neck.

“Well, if it isn’t Grimmjow, one of the miracle three,” the man that Grimmjow recognized vaguely from a long time ago. “I don’t think you’ll remember me much, you were small when I saw you last. Dr. Sōsuke Aizen, and you were in those drug trials. Imagine my surprise when you walked right in a business I owned to start yelling at this one.”

“Fucking bastard broke my goddamn collarbone before I got him down. He was going on about the little faggot.”

“I’m going to kill you if you keep talking about him like that,” Grimmjow growled, lip curling in anger.

“Ichigo?” Aizen asked with a frown. “Did you lose him?” Aizen turned and glared at Abirama now.

“What? No, I didn’t… I mean, he was at the dorms… And I haven’t talked to him today…” Abirama stammered.

“That’s cuz Kisuke Urahara has him now, dumbass,” Grimmjow smirked.

Aizen turned and glared at Abirama. “You let Ichigo get taken by Urahara.”

“I didn’t let him do anything! You told me to make him think he was making the choices and coming to me on his own! I couldn’t force him to live with me!” Abirama snarled back at him.

“You are incompetent. The only reason you are still Ichigo’s handler is because getting that boy to trust anyone else is impossible,” Aizen said with a sigh. “You are useless if Kisuke has him now.”

“Look, I’m sorry I…”

Abirama didn’t finish. Grimmjow tried to say something but it happened too fast. Aizen pulled a handgun out of his jacket and shot the other man right in the temple. For a second, Abirama’s face changed to one of shock, but then he crumbled. Grimmjow’s ears felt like someone had tried to stab both of them, and his head was ringing from how close that shot had been. Aizen sighed and turned to leave. He said something but Grimmjow couldn’t hear it with the ringing in his ears.

Time slowed down and he really didn’t know how long he waited, but eventually a man came down with silver hair and a smile. His eyes were hidden under the fringes of his bangs. He had a long knife in his hands and was twirling it.

“Mah, Boss said make ya bleed, and make ya talk. So ya gonna tell us where his pet project went with Mr. Urahara. We’d rather raid the right holding…” he said and approached him. “Mah name’s Gin, nice ta meetcha.”

Several hours later, Grimmjow watched the silver haired bastard leave. He looked down to realize that there was a drain in the floor. That was probably for the best since he’d bled a whole lot. He didn’t scream though. He definitely didn’t talk. There was no way they were getting Ichigo’s location out of him. He was going to protect the cub whether he knew it or not. He felt unconsciousness slide and let it this time. A nap sounded good.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

“Mah, why’d ya have to shoot eaglet?” Gin said as he put his knives away. He was covered with blood all over his white suit.

“You should wear black, Gin. Instead of that white.” Aizen wasn’t really looking at him. “And I shot him because he was useless. His only purpose was to watch Ichigo and he lets him get taken back to Urahara’s. Though I suppose I captured Grimmjow. That one was surprisingly slippery. I’m surprised that Urahara was able find him. He was using several aliases.”

Gin pulled off the bloody jacket, dress shirt, and suit pants and put them down the incinerator shoot nearby. “I suppose, Boss. But mah feelin’ is that this ain’t over yet.”  He turned, in a pair of boxer shorts now and walked back to where Aizen was sitting.

“I’d say. If he has all of them, that might be in our favor though…” Aizen mused.

“Why is that?” Gin asked, sliding onto Aizen’s lap, straddling him while hooking his arms around his neck.

“If Urahara figures out hogyuku on his own, I can just steal it.”

Gin smirked. “Ah, Boss, yer growin’ down thar ‘gin. Wanna have another go ‘round?”

Aizen slipped both hands around and gripped Gin’s ass. “Hmm, you know, we aren’t sure how this will harm you with the effects accelerating. If we don’t figure this out, you’re going to be dead just like the ones that already died.”

“Ah, mah Boss, ya won’t let that happen, right? Ya like me too much,” Gin said, his tongue flicking out now, forked at the end.

Aizen sighed. “Gin, you take this too lightly. Your changes are accelerating. We haven’t got much time.”

“Yah, yah, so let’s enjoy what time I do have. Mah time is mine, yah? So then we should have fun while I can. If I die in yer arms than that’s all I wanna have happen. That’s tha way to go. Being fucked senseless by tha man ya love more than yer own life,” Gin said, moving in and nuzzling into Aizen’s neck. “I’m okay with that.”

Gin pretended not to notice Aizen’s tears when he closed his eyes.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Scrambling to figure out what to do was easier said than done. There wasn’t a lot to go on, except they knew that Grimmjow had found a business that Abirama worked at. Then, several hours after they began, the news that Abirama had been found dead crossed Kisuke’s desk just as Jūshirō and Shunsui arrived.

“Jūshirō, how are you feeling?” he asked.

“So far, I’m breathing well today,” the white haired man answered. His partner, the hale and muscular Shunsui had one arm around the more fragile man as usual. Kisuke smiled. They were perhaps one of the more unique pairs that had come of the experiments. Shunsui’s entire life was dedicated to taking care of and providing for Jūshirō. There was no one more in love with someone than that man.

“I want you two to meet with Ichigo, he doesn’t know what’s happened…”

“What’s happened?” Ichigo’s voice came from the doorway. He was standing, with Sajin, his hand loosely held. “Something has happened? Where’s Grimmy?”

“Ah, Ichigo, come in, we need to talk. Ah, this is Jūshirō Ukitake, and Shunsui Kyrouku. They’re some of those that were in early trials. Jūshirō here is a half success.” He took Ichigo’s hand from Sajin and pulled him into the room. He gave a nod to Sajin who returned it and left. “Sit,” Kisuke said and led the orange-haired boy to the sofa. Jūshirō followed and sat down beside them. Shunsui grabbed the office chair and straddled it backward to watch.

“Half success?” Ichigo asked, looking at Jūshirō.

“Yes, I’m alive, so that’s the successful half,” he said with a smirk. “I had drug-resistant tuberculosis and was dying. Kisuke tried to save me with the hogyuku formula, but instead of curing me, it left me with a permanent type of TB, but it won’t ever kill me. Somehow I regenerate some of my illness.”

“Ichigo has a regenerative factor,” Kisuke confirmed. Ichigo turned to him with meshed brows. “I’ve narrowed the DNA to some sort of manipulated lizard. It isn’t normal, Sōsuke did something to the DNA to change it, but some sort of lizard, maybe a kimono dragon if I’m not wrong.”

Ichigo nodded. “But, what’s happened?” he asked, going back to the whole reason he’d come in here.

“Ah, it seems that Grimmjow got out and went after Abirama…” Kisuke said with a sigh.

“What?” Ichigo said standing up. “I have to go stop him!”

“Wait, there’s more,” Kisuke said as he grabbed Ichigo’s wrist. “Sit, please.”

Ichigo sat down, confused. “What more?”

“Abirama’s body was found a little while ago.”

“What? Grimmjow wouldn’t kill him!” Ichigo gasped.

“No, Grimmjow didn’t kill him,” Shunsui confirmed. “Sōsuke Aizen did. He was shot in the head, executed. My guess because you got away from him.”

“Wait, what are you talking about? Abirama didn’t know this Aizen guy.” Ichigo looked between them, brows scrunched in a very dedicated scowl.

Kisuke glanced at Jūshirō. Shunsui was a liaison to law enforcement. Jūshirō was the primary person that worked on keeping track of the subjects that Aizen still had under his control.

“Ichigo, Sōsuke has apparently been using Abirama to keep an eye on you without your knowledge. The place Grimmjow went, where Abirama works, is owned by his company. He was using Abirama because he was one of the subjects. His DNA was spliced with eagle DNA, and he had very sharp eyes because of it. That’s why he let you live alone. He lived in the building across from the dorms, right?”

Ichigo nodded. “Yeah…”

“He didn’t need to be near you to spy. That’s why he stayed with you. He was put in that school by Aizen to stay close to you,” Jūshirō explained. “Why he didn’t have eyes on Grimmjow and Ulquiorra, I don’t know, but it seems that both of them were good at covering themselves, or he simply didn’t look very hard for them. I rather thing the latter.”

“So… So, Abirama is dead… Where’s Grimmjow?” Ichigo asked, starting to panic.

Shunsui sighed. “I’m sorry, but Sōsuke has him now. We don’t know for sure which location, but that’s the game with Sōsuke. He’s been trying to locate this facility for a while. Well, actually he’s tried several times but he’s never been able to do it. And we’ve moved many times.”

“But what will he do to Grimmy?” Ichigo asked with frantic eyes.

“Torture him into revealing where you are. You’re the one that got the most complete formula, and he’s going to want you back.” Kisuke put a hand on his back gently.

“I don’t…” Ichigo started, eyes going wide and he shook his head. “N-n-ng…n-no…” he muttered as he threw his head back.

Kisuke gasped catching him as he fell backward. His body started to thrash, worse than his previous seizure. “Shunsui, help me get him into the exam room!”

Almost three hours later, and several doses of high powered sedatives, Kisuke managed to drop into a chair next to the bed. Szayel, Mayuri Kurotsuchi, Retsu Unohana, and Shunsui also looked exhausted. Mayuri was another scientist, though one that had continued experimentation on himself since the initial trials had cured him of chronic acne, but he was disfigured in the process and now wore various Kabuki style masks to cover his face. Retsu was a doctor that the trials had been supposed to cure her of endometriosis. Instead she was rendered infertile, but had gained the ability to diagnose others at a touch.

Mayuri spoke up first. “That’s not a seizure. Whatever is happening to him is going to kill him if this doesn’t stop,” he said as he got up and left.

Szayel chewed his lip and looked at Kisuke. “What the fuck is with the way his eyes looked during it? They were black.”

“Broken blood vessels?” Retsu suggested. Her power had been useless.

“I don’t know,” Kisuke said with a sigh. “The formula is doing what it is supposed to do, what it is trying to do, I don’t know.”

“Trying to split me in two.” The voice was Ichigo’s but not Ichigo’s.

Kisuke stood up and saw that Ichigo’s eyes were still black in the sclera, but now were gold in the iris. He smiled, and stuck his tongue out, but it was blue. “What is this?”

“The other me,” the higher pitched voice said. “Might ask Shinji about the ‘other’ that he and a few others have like this,” Ichigo’s eyes fluttered and closed again. Kisuke reached over opened one, now seeing his eyes were normal.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Autism Self-Advocacy Network  
> • info@autisticadvocacy.org   
> • http://autisticadvocacy.org/   
> National Alliance on Mental Health  
> • 1-800-950-6264  
> • http://www.nami.org/   
> Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance  
> • 1-800-826-3632  
> • http://www.dbsalliance.org/   
> Transgender Youth Equality Foundation  
> • 207-478-4087  
> • http://www.transyouthequality.org/   
> Trans Student Educational Resources  
> • TSER@transstudent.org   
> • http://www.transstudent.org/   
> Stopbullying.gov  
> • https://www.stopbullying.gov/   
> PACERS National Bullying Prevention Center  
> • 1-800-537-2237  
> • http://www.pacer.org/bullying/   
> Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration  
> • 1-877-SAMHSA-7  
> • https://www.samhsa.gov/   
> National Suicide Prevention Hotline  
> • 1-800-273-8255  
> • https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/   
> Suicide Prevention Resources  
> • http://www.sprc.org/   
> American Foundation of Suicide Prevention   
> • https://www.afsp.org/   
> The American Association of Suicidology   
> • http://www.suicidology.org/   
> Crisis Text Line  
> • Text "Start" 741-741  
> • http://www.crisistextline.org/   
> S.A.F.E. Alternatives  
> • 1-800-DONTCUT  
> • http://www.selfinjury.com/   
> Trans Lifeline  
> • US: 1-877-565-8860 Canada: 1-877-330-6366  
> • https://www.translifeline.org/   
> GLBT National Youth Talk   
> • 1-800-246-7743 (M-F, 4pm-12am EST/Sat, 12pm-5pm EST)  
> The Trevor Project  
> • 1-866-488-7386 (24/7)  
> • Text “Trevor” 1-202-304-1200 (F 4pm - 8pm EST)  
> • http://www.thetrevorproject.org/   
> Disaster Distress Helpline   
> • 1-800-985-5990  
> • Text "TalkWithUs" 66746  
> National Sexual Violence Resource Center  
> • 1-877-739-3895  
> • http://www.nsvrc.org/   
> RAINN- Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network  
> • 1-800-656-4673  
> • https://www.rainn.org/   
> National Sexual Assault Hotline  
> • 1-800-656-4673  
> The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence  
> • 303-839-1852  
> • http://www.ncadv.org/   
> The National Domestic Violence Hotline  
> • 1-800-799-SAFE  
> • http://www.thehotline.org/   
> The National Resource Center on Domestic Violence  
> • 1-800-537-2238  
> • http://www.nrcdv.org/   
> Warm Ear Line  
> • 1-866-WARM EAR (927-6327)  
> • http://warmline.org/   
> National Human Trafficking Resource Center   
> • 1-888-373-7888  
> • Text BeFree (233733)  
> National Runaway Safeline   
> • 1-800-RUNAWAY (786-2929) (24/7)  
> • http://www.1800runaway.org/   
> USA National Child Abuse Hotline   
> • 1-800-422-4453 (24/7)  
> National Safe Place   
> • Text SAFE and your current location to the number 69866 (24/7)  
> • http://nationalsafeplace.org/   
> National Eating Disorders Association   
> • 800-931-2237 (M-F, 11:30 am-7:30 pm EST)  
> • http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/   
> ANAD: National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders   
> • 630-577-1330 (M-F,12 pm-8 pm EST)  
> • http://www.anad.org/


End file.
